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trawg writes "At a special event at Blizzard HQ in California, gaming press were treated to the first look at the Diablo 3 auction house — featuring real-world money transactions across different regions allowing you to buy and sell items with real money. There'll be a listing fee and a sales fee for auctions, and while they're not talking dollar numbers just yet, Blizzard assures gamers that they're not looking to pinch pennies."Update: 08/01 17:41 GMT by S:The other big piece of news about Diablo 3 is that it will require a persistent connection to Battle.net to play, even for single-player mode. Eurogamer has a detailed write-up about the current state of the beta.

I bought Diablo II and played it in single player and on a LAN exclusively. I'd probably buy Diablo 3 if I could do the same, but it seems that the game is aimed more at WoW players than people who enjoyed Diablo / Diablo II.

What? Though since you've never played online you probably don't know that RMT exists in Diablo 2 as well, and this is an effort to combat the most negative associations that go along with RMT (cheating/hacking/scamming).

Also, I think you are mistaken by assuming that the majority of D2 players didn't play online.

Mostly these days I play games on a laptop while travelling. If I'm on a train, Internet access is either nonexistent or expensive. If your game requires Internet access, it's either impossible or expensive to use in this environment, so I don't buy it.

It's 2011. As internet usage accelerates - Netflix, online gaming etc. - ISPs are throttling network connections, sometimes just blocking service if you go over a certain limit. Why should you need to gobble up unknown amounts of monthly "allowance" from God Emperor ISP to play a game single-player just because they have this fear of piracy? Pirates will have a "no internet required" patch out in no time, meaning only paying customers will be subject to this totally needless (except for DLC and bug reportin

I bought Diablo II and played it in single player and on a LAN exclusively.

My friends and I did the same, at least initially, but once I got onto Battle.net, I played online exclusively. The rest of them did the same once they got internet access at home.

One of them did something I thought very odd, though. He played on Battle.net, but only ever by himself. He didn't trade items, either. I couldn't fathom why anyone would do that, considering the palpable negative effects the added latency and the occasional full-on desync had on the game itself.

[nostalgia]To this day, I really, really miss hacking that game. I hereby give a shout out to anyone who recognizes these names or hacks: Herzog Zwei, Thohell, Very_Superior (though a jerk he mostly was), BootyJu1ce, EvilCheese (very, very brilliant hacker), Oxide (who I was told was a twerp), the Chest Hack (0x44, how we hardly knew ye), "The Matrix" (and anyone who liked the Ith War Pike I made on USEast), and (quite possibly the funniest exploit ever) Imbue Scanning.[/nostalgia]

One of them did something I thought very odd, though. He played on Battle.net, but only ever by himself. He didn't trade items, either. I couldn't fathom why anyone would do that, considering the palpable negative effects the added latency and the occasional full-on desync had on the game itself.

One of them did something I thought very odd, though. He played on Battle.net, but only ever by himself. He didn't trade items, either. I couldn't fathom why anyone would do that, considering the palpable negative effects the added latency and the occasional full-on desync had on the game itself.

Loot, which isn't always identical offline and online.

Ahhh... a keen observation! I wouldn't go so far as to say he was aware of that, though. I don't recall hearing a reason that made sense when I asked "why?" some years ago.:P

My mother. A lot. A whole lot more then I ever played diablo. (queue in the "your mother" jokes)But the "no offline" play will most likely mean that Blizzard won't see our money this time around. We have 2x Diablo II with exp, and no interest in online play.

I can understand the "do not mix offline/online chars" idea. But only offering "always online" as an option is stupid in that case. Give the option to play offline and mark that character as "invalid for online play". Guess I'll wait for the torrent. I w

why does it matter? Not everyone has 3G everywhere they go, not everyone has a 100% of the time always on connection that has no hiccups or lag ever. Not everyone is OK with the idea that in 5 years if they feel like replaying an old game that they paid $60 for, they may or may not depending on if blizzard felt the game was still profitable enough to keep supporting.

Oh shit. You just KNOW the IRS will be getting involved here. Anytime you have money moving from person-to-person or business-to-person, the Feds will get their pound of flesh. This could get quite ugly for gamers.

Uh, what?! You mean that an auction house using real money, just like any other auction house using real money on the internet, might actually require people to note the income on their taxes? Quick! Somebody tell everybody who ever used eBay the government is saddling up to ride in on them at dawn! It's about to get real ugly!

I don't know what the case law on that is, but technically I think that would be considered bartering and as such taxable. You spent time accumulating the gold or items that you're then trading for some other items or gold.

Some countries created new business status just because of eBay to tax people making a living out of it. In France it was called "Modernization of the Economy Law." They even have a website for it [minefe.gouv.fr].

I'm no tax attorney (thank the heavens), but my understanding is that virtual items will be treated as assets, so the IRS would only get involved if a player cashes out those assets and realizes a gain. The upside is that, if I understand correctly, gamers making money off of playing Diablo would be treated like hedge fund managers and be taxed on that income at the 15% capital gains rate rather than ordinary income tax levels.

It's not a trivial change. Previously you could only buy purely cosmetic benefits for Blizzard games (unless you were involved in seedy craiglist-style transactions). The shift in policy from only allowing the sale of cosmetic effects to allowing the sale of actual in-game benefits is significant, even if Blizzard isn't going to be doing the selling. Whether you think it's wonderful or terrible, it's a notable change in game dynamics.

If Blizzard *themselves* were selling weapons or armor or something that they created, then yes, I would agree. This is just bringing the player-to-player exchanges that have been around since forever in-house.

however, its slightly mitigated in that you can't magic items out of thin air - ie, the game balance might just be kept if the fancy items simply change hands from one player to another.

Its not like they are allowing you to buy skill points, which would be terribly bad. I guess it just legitimises those craigslist transactions (which you can't really stop if one player "decides" to give his fancy item to another player), and allows Blizzard to grab a little fee as thoseplayers do it, which they would go ahe

No I find it unlikely this will ever move "backwards" (sideways?) into WoW. WoW has too larger of a fanbase, too many players to try something like this so late in the game. On the other hand I do find this a feasible large-scale test of using Gold + Currency trading in a Blizzard game. Yes other people have done it first, but this is Blizzard trying it for themselves. The minor testing was of course, mini-pets in wow and mounts, which confer no in game advantage. I honestly believe they'll stick to th

I suspect the issue there is since the trading is done outside of the game that they don't have anyway of ensuring that the trading isn't just a scam. The fact that they also aren't making money on it is probably the final nail in the coffin though.

While I agree it is a stupid law to try and use to stop gold sellers (IMO all MMO developers should be able to do is ban them via TOS violation, actually bringing authorities into it is stupid). The idea of this though is flat out dumb, it is a guaranteed way to draw in every gold bot etc across the world

More news to come out is their decision to mirror Ubisoft with an always online requirement. Players will require a Battle.net connection even to play single player. I certainly won't be purchasing it, and it seems that most of my friends won't either. Too much DRM and no LAN play make it a poor investment.

Not sure if he can, but I can: here [wired.co.uk]. Took about 5 secs of Google. From the article:

To play Diablo 3, you'll need a constant internet connection -- it cannot be played offline.

Amusing part: they're trying to spin this as "good" for players: "no longer will you have to worry about leveling up to 30-40, then having to restart from scratch on Battle.net! Everyone who wants to level to 30-40 and never play on battle.net: you can just go fuck yourself." Thats a paraphrase, but you get the idea. BTW, that would be people like me. No interest in online play, would love LAN/ singleplayer. It's OK: I most likely won't have to worry about either the DRM or playing online. Either through not buying the game or... well, use your imagination.

Oh yeah, and rich players can buy more power through this auction house. Next step: items that Blizzard is selling that can only be bought on the auction house. They might not do that: depends if Activision (aka Bobby Kotick) is really letting Blizzard be free to do their thing or not. Blizzard would realize that would ruin the game. Activision just sees the $$$$$$$ they could make, and screw the gamers (more).

This site references an interview Blizzard gave PC Gamer. Starcraft 2 has a timeout for single player without internet. I didn't know that until I was on a ship for a month and it stopped letting me play.

The best quote is from Rob Pardo (Executive Vice President of Blizzard):

While Pardo recognizes that people sometimes want or need to play offline (such as internet outages, or playing on a laptop during an airplane flight), he notes that the increased security, plus benefits like the above, outweigh those other concerns. "I want to play Diablo 3 on my laptop in a plane, but, well, there are other games to play for times like that."

If you buy this game you are essentially going to work for Blizzard except you will be paying for the privilege. Blizzard is taking a cut of each auction when it is posted and again when it is sold (real money). So, you pay Blizzard to play the game (where you search for treasures) then you pay Blizzard (in real money) to trade/buy/sell these things you paid them for the opportunity to find. This is a digital diamond mine and you are a fucking slave.

Your point would be more valid if there weren't dozens of services that do the exact same thing already. I see this as Blizzard making a virtue of necessity: if people are going to sell their rare items, then why not facilitate that?

I seem to recall one of the arguments against allowing RMT at all in the past was that if Blizzard acknowledged that in-game items had value then they could be held liable if there was a server issue that caused someone to lose their account. Was that just an excuse, or is Blizzard so confident in their servers that they don't think that will happen?

It's August 1st, not April 1st today. I know they both start with "A", but you really shouldn't post things that are so obviously untrue until April Fool's Day rolls around again, since it's just not funny. I mean, this is a joke, right?

So I'm reading that there are three parts to what Blizzard revealed today.

1. D3 players must be always connected to the internet. I don't much care about this, as long as I can play single-player. All my Steam games are always connected already; I'm getting used to it. As long as I can have a game that outsiders cannot join and that is balanced for a single person, I don't care if my internet connection has to be on to play it. (Two years ago my answer would have been different, as I only had a flaky d

I kind of have to agree...I was a hardcore D2 gamer, almost failed out of college because of that game, and I've been looking forward to D3 Very Much.But real money? No. I play games as an escape from thinking about things like my bank account.

Bliz, please rethink this.Let a real money secondary economy evolve, but for the love of Pete don't enshrine it in the game.

Let a real money secondary economy evolve, but for the love of Pete don't enshrine it in the game.

Why? This means that you are less likely to get ripped off since Blizzard will be running it versus the third party sites where you are most likely getting scammed from. Why would you think the second choice is better?

Why? This means that you are less likely to get ripped off since Blizzard will be running it versus the third party sites where you are most likely getting scammed from. Why would you think the second choice is better?

Frankly because I don't care if people doing an explicitly forbidden activity get ripped off.Wrapping it into the game likely means that all the best items will get put in the cash auction house, and the in-game-gold AH will only have lesser items.

I'd love a separate server (cluster) for those who wanted to play in the real money economy.

Realistically lack of LAN play in today's market will only upset geeks, and only a very small subset of them. Battle.NET DRM is indeed annoying in it's own way, but it's also kind of cool - namely in that Blizzard will let you redownload all your games at will. I managed to find my Warcraft III jewel case in a drawer - no clue where the CD is, but it had the CD-key on the case. I logged into my Battle.NET account, registered that game, and poof. Instantly download ability. That's a benefit that I can live with a few negatives to get.

My thoughts exactly, in D2 I played hardcore exclusively after the first year and only played with a fairly large group of friends who were into legit gaming, the SOJ and ZOD hacking never affected me because I simply never traded with anyone outside my group, I'm sure I'll do the same with D3 and so the real money auction house will never affect me.

Let a real money secondary economy evolve, but for the love of Pete don't enshrine it in the game.

Well, if Blizz is set on doing this they should just fracture the community in half from the start. Establish 2 separate servers to play on, one supporting this RMT feature, and the other featuring an in-game economy only. Although the problem with the original D2 economy was that gold was worthless and you always had to barter item-for-item to get anything. So if there is going to be an "in-game" economy at all, they really need a medium of exchange that isn't worthless.

You know, they have these interesting organizational units called "departments" - usually people with specific skillsets are assigned to specific departments to work on specific things related to said skillsets.

I'm fairly certain the people "squabbling" over this are not the ones doing real important work, such as programming, art, testing or such.

The MBAs need something to do while the real work is happening, after all...

Keep it up. Before the US dollar was the world's reserve, it was the British pound. Look how well that worked out for them. Currencies come, and currencies go. But actually paying for your imports for a change instead of just printing up money for them is going to be a real bitch for you. I can't wait to see how that works out.

Um, WWII bitchslapped them? Right now there IS no other currency that would work as a reference currency. The Euro is in dire shit, and with the Yuan pegged to the dollar like a pinned butterfly it can't be used. That leaves the Yen, and the Japanese are leveraged out their ass worse than us.

don't underestimate the Chinese looking at the current debt crisis plays in the US and thinking "WTF, these clowns are controlling our interbank currency". I can imagine a lot of dollars will be sold off as the Chinese reduce their huge dependance on the dollars you sent them, I think they'll buy euros (they've already started) as its hardly more f**** up than the dollar.

Actually, it will eliminate a lot of that spam, since if you're looking for something, you have a singular, searchable place to go find it. Unfortunately, it will be replaced by "Yo yo, check out my auction for 4 2 soc 2 skill 20 fcr barb circlet". On the plus side, thousands of Chinese teenagers are about to get new jobs.

It just lets Blizzard get that percentage rather than an outside company. And why shouldn't they? These people are going to do it one way or another. Why not integrate it into the game?

The general argument is that then Blizzard has a conflict of interest: will future additions and changes to the game focus on increasing fun, or will they focus on increasing transaction profit?

It's easy for any person or organization to say "this is just something on the side and we will always focus on our core intent rather than generating extra profit". This is much harder to do in reality.

It's much easier to restrain oneself from entering a situation with a conflict of interest than getting involved and making questionable choices, perhaps without knowing you are making a tradeoff.

Blizzard will likely make a good real-money trading system. That's not the issue.

The issue is Blizzard will then have an incentive to design the economy around stimulating real-money trading. So the system of drop frequency and the frequency of adding new items to the game could easily be designed to encourage maximum trading. Even if this is not the plan at the start, it will be a factor in every decision they make with game items or the economy, either overtly or in the back of their minds. It could not be otherwise, because as you said, "The whole point of being in business selling games is to make a profit".

The risk is the economy starts looking more like that of a free-to-play game because the developer has the same motives as a free-to-play developer if they are skimming money from transactions. The next step is the developer selling the rare items for a lot of real-world money to increase profits even more, even though this totally ruins an economy based on scarcity. Then the question is, how much will players tolerate? From Blizzard, I think they will tolerate quite a lot.

I have no interest in playing Diablo III myself--I just hate to see video games increasingly turning from something developed to bring challenge and fun to the player and sold at a one-time cost into something explicitly designed at every step to encourage players to pay for satisfaction within a game that can be turned off permanently at any time the developer chooses.

So, there's a good chance I'll never play the game. And if I did, I wouldn't spend real money to buy stuff for one of my game characters.

Me either. If mere money can give players an advantage, it seriously cheapens the game. I liked D2 because they struck down on those selling items.I would have liked it even better if they completely disabled rare gifts - let people find their own loot, and if you have great gear, it's because of playing the game, not because of having money.